I thought I’d share pictures of a few of my handmade Christmas presents – all made from reclaimed fabric. Actually – I’ll be honest – these are the only handmade Christmas presents I made this year. For the rest we went with reusable stainless steel drink bottles or sunscreen.

These ‘art bags’ hold a sketch pad and coloured pencils. I made them using an old pair of denim jeans and vintage cotton sheets. The denim makes the base of the bag strong enough to hold scissors. After sewing the denim to the sheet, I made a simple drawstring bag. You may have noticed I’ve been making loads of simple drawstring bags recently. I love how useful and easy to make they are.

The drawstring is made from bias trim, folded in half and sewn along the edge. I recently bought a bias tape maker tool. How cool are they!!! I love the look of bias binding from vintage sheets.

I also made a business card holder using this tutorial.

 
Hopefully next Christmas I’ll manage to make a few more handmade gifts. I probably shouldn’t give away my plan, but i'd love to learn a new skill and make something like these as gifts this year.